Politicians know to tread carefully around the topic of tuition fees. Nick Clegg in particular understands how explosive this minefield can get. Having abandoned the 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto pledge to oppose any increase in tuition fees, he went on to lose 49 of his party’s 57 seats at the 2011 general election. This topic sucks up vast amounts of political oxygen pretty much any time it is mentioned and, unfortunately, as so often in British politics, the volatility of the issue bends the debate out of shape and gets in the way of much-needed, pragmatic discussion – in this case, around reforming the student maintenance system.
There are certainly issues with the current fees system, but the area most loudly crying out for intervention is student living costs. The urgency for support was pressing even before rampant inflation made it more so. It’s clear now that George Osborne made a tragic mistake when he scrapped means-tested, non-repayable grants in 2016 in favour of a loans-based system where students borrow money to cover their living costs. He might as well have slammed a brake on social mobility.
In 2019, the Augar review recommended bringing back maintenance grants of at least £3,000 for disadvantaged students. So far, the government has seen fit to ignore that recommendation.
Yet rethinking support for living costs would yield immediate results in encouraging the most disadvantaged young people to access higher education. Keir Starmer’s Labour, which is currently reviewing its position on student finance after its U-turn on tuition fees earlier this year, must surely step in.
